Its Saturday, November 23rd, 2013. I wake up at the crack of 10am, foggy from a late night gig in London. I pulled into the show 5 minutes before I was due to host the fucker. Pissing in an alley, while running, and hauling back one of the final sweet Marlboro Reds of my 20s, all in perfect unison as I rushed to get inside. I was out of the early winter cold, and onstage in a mad panic.

When they announced me, I was still throwing my coat down, trying to get in a quick sip of fine golden ale. And c’est le vies – it was time to dance!

The night ended with a midnight coffee stop on the way back to Toronto. I tossed on some River-era Springsteen and shut out the world, while a theatre actor chewed valiums in the back seat.

This, in a nutshell, is my life in comedy.

But here I am, back in the world’s greatest city, on the eve of my 30th birthday – and what do I see out the window? The first snow of the year. It looks very Dickensian. Except I am not an English orphan with rotting teeth. Turn of the century British orphans were appalling little monsters, there’s a reason God saw fit to wipe them from the earth with asteroids.

This snow is nature’s way of telling me that the summer of my youth is dead, gone, and frosted over. There’s already salt & pepper upstairs, and if I didn’t shave below the equator, the carpet would definitely match the drapes. But I’m as bald as a baby eagle down there, my friends. Nothing screams class like a freshly polished hard wood floor

On Sunday, November 24th, your comedy editor is sending his 20s out with a bang. It was a colorful decade. Not a single shade of neutral in my box of Crayolas. A lot of long nights, tough decisions and warm beer & cold women, as Tom Waits once said.

From the radio mic to the standup stage, TV and road gigs. There’s not a single set I’d say different, not a single bomb I’d try to un-detonate. In it all, is a lesson

The stars are aligned for 30-something Dean. I’ve never been more driven to work harder, or surround myself with more colorful talented people.